An Oriental Assignment
An Oriental Assignment is the first short story in the anthology Comrades in Arms published in 1947. This story features Gimlet King and his team of commandos as well as Biggles, Algy and Ginger. In May 1968, Artima published a small format comic strip adaptation of the story in their Commando series of war stories. The story was entitled Rendez-vous en Extrême-Orient. While a fairly faithful adaptation, for some reason, Gimlet was given the name "Kinday" and Biggles became "J. B. Worth". Synopsis Gimlet and his team are sent to French Indochina to recover some valuable seeds of a rare rubber plant. The only problem is that they are to be found in a hotel being used as a headquarters by the occupying Japanese forces! At least Gimlet and co. have Biggles to look after their insertion and extraction. For this, and probably for the only time in the works of , Biggles flies a Catalina. Plot (click on expand to read) Gimlet and his commandos have a mission to the Far East. An eminent botanist, Sir Lionel Radnor had, at the behest of the British government, succeeded in developing a variety of rubber plant which could grow in a temperate climate. However, while travelling from China through French Indochina with the seeds, he had been betrayed and captured by the Japanese. Just before his arrest, he had taken the precaution of hiding his cache of twenty seeds in a wooden elephant statuette in the Hotel Oriente in Saigon. Sir Lionel had been taken to Japan and tortured for the location of the seeds and had died without revealing it to the Japanese. The news of what happened had reached the British authorities through Charla Song, the Chinese assistant of Sir Lionel. Now Gimlet and his team must go and retrieve the seeds or destroy them to prevent them falling into Japanese hands. From Calcutta, Biggles flies Gimlet and co. in a Catalina to the coast of Vietnam where they then row ashore. Copper is left to guard their arms and food supply while the rest proceed into Saigon towards the Hotel Oriente. They get to the reading room of the hotel easily enough, but when they search the elephant statuette, the seeds are gone! They are about to leave when a Chinese boy whom Cub have noticed was watching them down in the lobby entered the room. He is Chang Chu. He seems to know who they are and what they want. He tells them to go soon as General Onatishu would be coming to the reading room soon. He gives them a rendezvous at Ting Loo's opium den where he would tell them more. On the way out of the hotel, Cub meets a German officer who had once questioned him in France two years ago. Would he remember? Gimlet and co. proceed to Ting Loo's and gives the appropriate pass phrase Chang Chu had provided. Ting Loo guides them to a back room where Chang Chu joins them later. He explains that he is the nephew of Charla Song. His uncle had switched the seeds in the elephant for ordinary ones. The Japanese had since found those but have already discovered that did did not get Sir Lionel's original seeds. They then arrested Charla Song, tortured him and finally executed him when he refused to reveal where he had hidden them. The situation was not good. The Japanese were already looking for some spies in town (the German had recognised Cub). Chang Chu did not know where his Uncle had hidden the seeds. There seemed little more they can do but Gimlet decides they must at least search Charla Song's house, just about the only place the seeds could be hidden at. Chang Chu takes them late at night by the quiet side roads to Charla Song's house but even so Gimlet is accosted and taken into custody by a Japanese, obliging Trapper to dispose of him with his knife. Charla Song's house is in a dilapidated state and it is clear the Japanese had already torn it apart in their search for the seeds. Gimlet finds a slip of paper with part of a Chinese poem, a wall decoration, which Chang Chu translates: "By still water in a garden is happiness found." The search is unsuccessful but Cub believes there could be a clue in the poem. He sits by a pond in the overgrown garden and then has a eureka moment: there is a recently cultivated patch with seedlings, and there are twenty of them in neat rows. Charla's outsmarted the Japanese. They had all along been searching for seeds but Charla had planted them! The commandos gather up the seedlings but already a carload of Japanese soldiers have arrived at the house to search for spies. Gimlet is obliged to make an attack and dispose of them. They then don the Japanese uniform caps and steal their car. They drive quickly to their supply dump where Copper is waiting. The Japanese caps help allay the suspicions of passing Japanese troops, but even so, they have to force their way through two roadblocks and cause a deliberate collision to throw off a pursuing car. They meet up with Copper and proceed to make the rendezvous with Biggles. Gimlet offers to take Chang Chu with them if he wishes to leave. He agrees. The party rows out offshore, evading patrol boats and aircraft, and board Biggles' Catalina and are flown back to India. Characters *Gimlet *"Copper" Collson *"Trapper" Troublay *"Cub" Peters *Biggles *Algy *Ginger *Sir Lionel Radnor *Charla Song *Chang Chu *Ting Loo *General Onastishu *Monsieur Laffon Aircraft *Consolidated Catalina Places Visited *Calcutta *Saigon **Place Dumont **Hotel Oriente **Rue Lafayette Mentioned Research Notes Chronology *This would have been late in the war. The lower limit is probably in late 1944. Cub meets a German officer who questioned hin at Chateaudun two years before. That would have been in King of the Commandos which took place after September 1942. *The upper limit is no later than March 1945. After that, the Japanese took direct control of French Indochina and arrested the Vichy officials. There would have been no Monsieur Laffon residing at the Hotel Oriente after that. *Cub's rank is not given but at the end of Gimlet Goes Again which took place just after King of the Commandos, Gimlet mentions that Cub might be sent to officer training school. References to the past *''King of the Commandos'' and the events at Chateaudun. Incongruities References Category:Short stories Category:Biggles short stories Category:Gimlet short stories